This is a PowerPoint on how we can make use of blogging and microblogging in foreign language teaching and learning.

1. Blogging and Microblogging in Foreign
Language Teaching and Learning
Can they
take a
role?1

2. Table of
Contents!
Overview of the Concepts
Blogging and
microblogging
Teaching the Four Skills
Using blogging and
microblogging
Grouping the Four Skills
Receptive or productive?
Resources

3. 01
Overview of the Concepts
Blogging Vs. Microblogging

4. Blogging refers mainly to writing that is
self-published online.
It could be done for individual
purposes or sometimes for business.
Blogging

5. “Microblogging is a combination of
instant messaging and content
production. With a microblog, you
share short messages with an online
audience to improve engagement.
Social channels like Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook and Pinterest offer popular
platforms for microblogging.”
● sproutsocial.com
Microblogging

6. Teaching languages to a generation of
students living in a world where technology
plays a prominent role, could be challenging
and at the same time full of opurtunities for the
teacher to be creative. To be creative, can
we apply blogging or microblogging to our
language teaching and use them to teach
different skills?

7. 02
Grouping the Four Skills
Receptive or Productive?

8. Main Skills
Reading
Receptive
Productive
Speaking
Receptive
Productive
Listening
Receptive
Productive
Writing
Receptive
Productive

9. 03
Teaching the Four Skills Using
Blogging and Microblogging
Is it feasible?!

10. Reading
Reading is actually one of the
main activities people do on
different websites or blogs.
Generally, reading could be of
two types: intensive reading which
is done for learning, or extensive
reading, which is done for
pleasure.

11. Can we use blogging to
teach reading?
I personally assume that we can make
use of blogging or even microblogging
in teaching reading. To share my idea
on how we can do that, I think we
could make a club for our class and
that club is basically run using a
weblog. Students are all members of
that club and can share posts or read
others posts and leave comments. The
teacher could also post something
interesting, like an article related to a
specific topic,
everyday and ask students to read it,
share their ideas about the text in the
comments and maybe even answer
some questions. This way students can
also reflect on their peers’ answers
and ideas. Now I used the word
‘blog’ here, but I suppose this can
also be done on Instagram if the text
is short and won’t make students
bored while reading the captions.

12. Listening
Listening is also an activity that
people enjoy doing on social
channels, for instance when they
are watching a video on
YouTube or Instagram or even
when they listen to podcasts or
audiobooks on Castbox or similar
apps.

13. Can we use blogging to
teach listening?
I am not sure if we could use blogs to
teach listening, because people mostly
use blogs for writing about themselves
or reading other users’ posts. But if we
think of microblogging, maybe that
would be possible. We can ask our
students to listen to a specific podcast
or a part of an audiobook of their
interest.
Then we can ask them to share an
Instagram post about it, writing in the
caption a short summary of the audio
file they have listened to in order to
introduce it to others.

14. Speaking
Speaking is always considered
as one of the most challenging
skills for students to cope with
and learn. By the use of
microblogging we might be
able to ease the burden a little
bit.

15. Can we use blogging to
teach speaking?
If students are too shy to speak in front
of others, we can ask them to talk
about a specific topic at home and
record themselves while talking. Then
they can share this video on a specific
page for their class on Instagram,
which only students of that class will be
able to follow.
Then after sharing it, other students
would be able to leave comments or
reflect on the video recording
themselves and sharing their own
post. In case of pronunciation or
grammatical mistakes, students and
the teacher might also want to
correct each other using the
comments section.

16. Writing
Writing could be regarded as the most
common activity in blogging and
microblogging. But when it comes to
writing on a piece of paper, students
usually find it too frustrating to deal with.
And the reason behind this, according
to a lot of FL learners, is lack of ideas for
writing.

17. Can we use blogging to
teach writing?
As I mentioned earlier, the most
common challenge students face
while writing, is lack of ideas. Therefore,
one thing that can help them through
this is to let them have some
preparation before they begin to write.
As an example, we could post a
picture on a blog or Instagram and
give them some specific words or
phrases related to that topic using
hashtags.
Then we can ask students to reply to
this post by writing about that topic,
using that picture and hashtags to
come up with some ideas. After
sharing their posts or actually
‘writings’, maybe the teacher could
introduce the person who has
received the most number of ‘likes’
for their post, as the winner.

18. 04
Resources

19. Resources
sproutsocial.com
For a definition
on Microblogging
Slidesgo.com
Provided the
template of the
power point.

20. Thanks!
If you wish to contact me,
email me at:
faribaforoutan@yahoo.com